New York police have stopped and frisked nearly 5-million people over the last ten years.
New York has experienced a sharp increase in shootings, and that comes shortly after a recent ruling to reform the police department’s highly debated “stop-and-frisk” tactic.
Only a month after the policy was ruled to be unconstitutional, shootings skyrocketed nearly 13 percent while gun seizures plummeted nearly 20 percent.
According to NYPD statistics, From August 10 to September 8, 140 shootings occurred across the city, compared with 124 shootings over the same period last year.
In the same time period, 239 firearms were seized by police, compared with 289 from last year, according to statistics seen by the New York Post.
The sharp rise in gun crime comes days after the federal judge who ordered an overhaul of the stop-and-frisk strategy refused to delay the process pending an appeal by the city.
U.S. District Judge Shira Scheindlin said a delay would send “precisely the wrong signal.”
“It would essentially confirm that the past practices, resulting in hundreds of thousands of stops – overwhelmingly of minorities – that resulted in little or no enforcement action or seizure of contraband were justified and based on constitutional practices,” Scheindlin said.
“It would also send the message that reducing the number of stops is somehow dangerous to the residents of this city,” she added.
The majority of the stop-and-frisk tactics are implemented on minorities.
In August, after finding the program to be discriminatory against minorities, Scheindlin ordered changes to the program. Over the past decade, police have stopped, questioned and oftentimes patted down approximately 5-million people.
But now, police are reluctant to stop and search for fear of “being sued,” according to the Post.
“They feel as if the city is not going to indemnify them in lawsuits,” the source said.
While Judge Scheindlin didn’t comment on the statistics, she did criticize “Certain high-level city officials and pundits” who misinterpreted her ruling.
Scheindlin assured she didn’t order an end to the stop-and-risk program, but instead amended it so it would be carried out legally, ordering some officers to wear cameras while on-duty and appointing a monitor to ensure the program’s legality where frequent stops occur.
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